The Fifth Hokage's Personal Style / Konoha's Tailed Beast Operation Begins

The next moment, a white light shone from his body.

This is a sign that he is resolving his own Impure World Reincarnation.

The same phenomenon also occurred in Senju Tobirama.

Despite his reputation, this Second Hokage was a man of action, not one to procrastinate.

"Let's not think about Danzo anymore," he said, adding, "He's no longer suited to this era."

Uchiha Shingen nodded.

His gaze was fixed solely on Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama.

The two brothers also sensed that after the Impure World Reincarnation was dispelled, a force was trying to pull them away.

"Tobi, do your best." Senju Tobirama finally couldn't hold back and said those words.

Then, their bodies collapsed before Uchiha Shingen's eyes, dust scattering like raindrops, revealing the White Zetsu inside.

It really is White Zetsu; otherwise, it wouldn't be able to hold back so much power.

But before the lifeless White Zetsu could fall from the Hokage Rock, flames erupted from their bodies.

Uchiha Shingen had already raised his hand and made a pinching motion.

The two White Zetsu corpses Kakkō and quickly burned to ashes.

Uchiha Shingen withdrew his Ninjutsu and disappeared from the Hokage Rock.

The offerings scattered after the two brothers were freed from the Impure World Reincarnation should not be seen by others, so burning them is the best option.

Senju Hashirama's achievements include ending the Warring States period, establishing Hidden Leaf Village, making unparalleled contributions, and laying the foundation for the village-as-a-country system.

Senju Tobirama is regarded as the Hokage who led Leaf Village forward with his wisdom.

However, Senju Tobirama told Hashirama that the selection of Hokage should be determined by popular election and high-level consultation. This model later evolved into the Jonin Conference system, which was prevalent in the Ninja World.

These two people have no stain on their record in Leaf Village, nor can they have any, not even indirectly.

Having erased all traces of White Zetsu, Uchiha Shingen returned to the Hokage's office using the Flying Thunder God.

Next, it's time to capture the Tailed Beasts.

But Uchiha Shingen wasn't in a good mood today, so he sat down first and began reviewing the documents.

The first day of the fifth generation era has passed just like that.

Nothing happened, it was all uneventful.

Until the next day.

The first Hokage Order of the Fifth Hokage era has finally been issued.

The Jonin gathered at the Hokage Building upon the new Hokage's summons.

Everyone was wondering what kind of decrees Uchiha Shingen would issue.

A new broom sweeps clean.

Let alone the Hokage.

In the Jonin gathering room, Uchiha Shingen, who had arrived early, looked at the Jonin who had already assembled below and decided to throw away the manuscript he had prepared.

I stayed up all night and didn't finish writing.

Then he said.

"Everyone, I have decided to recall all the Tailed Beasts."

His tone was very calm, like when he went out in the morning and said to the stall owner near his house, "Boss, give me a steamed bun."

Uchiha Shingen said those words so casually that no one initially reacted.

When they realized what Uchiha Shingen had said, they were immediately filled with shock.

As we all know, the so-called balance of the Tailed Beasts did not bring peace to the world. Shortly after Senju Hashirama's death, the First Shinobi Ninja World War broke out, which was extremely brutal and almost completely buried the Second, led by Tobirama.

The Tailed Beasts didn't have any balancing effect at all.

There are very few people who can effectively manipulate the power of the Tailed Beasts. In the original timeline, not counting Uchiha Madara, there are only the Fourth Mizukage, Uchiha Obito, Killer B, and Naruto Uzumaki. Whether it is controlling with their eye power or cooperating with each other, only these few people can make the Tailed Beasts attack exactly where they want.

Others could at best suppress the Tailed Beasts, but could not Tailed Beast Transformation effective combat power. At least after Uchiha Madara died, no one in the Ninja World could effectively convert the complete Tailed Beasts into effective combat power. From the perspective of Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama at that time, it was entirely possible that it would take decades to find the next person who could effectively control the Tailed Beasts.

A talent Killer B from Kumogakure is a once-in-a-century find.

Putting aside control, Tailed Beasts are not easy to store. The magical artifacts of the Sage of Sage of Six Paths, Hagoromo Otsutsuki, are extremely rare. Therefore, Tailed Beasts can only be sealed into the bodies of Jinchūriki in most cases. As a result, Jinchūriki often go berserk. Tailed Beasts are huge sources of Chakra, and even if they don't cause trouble, Jinchūriki have to be careful.

Therefore, the Tailed Beasts are actually quite useless, as they are difficult to turn into effective combat forces and are like ticking time bombs.

This is also the reason why the Senju Clan brothers distributed the Tailed Beasts instead of keeping them for themselves.

Keeping them all at home instead of assigning them to other jobs is a disservice to people.

However, the Tailed Beasts are still powerful Chakra entities, which are of great value to an organization.

So, apart from those few people who can manipulate the power of the Tailed Beasts, from the village's perspective, they don't really care whether the Jinchūriki can control the Tailed Beasts. As long as they can make a container for the Tailed Beasts, the village's needs are met. Most of the time, each village is thinking about how to send their own Tailed Beasts to other villages and use the Tailed Beasts to go berserk to achieve their goals. After all, when the enemy uses the Tailed Beasts, the village itself basically cannot use the Tailed Beasts.

Thus, after Senju Hashirama distributed the Tailed Beasts, the world was at peace. At that time, Leaf Village had an absolute advantage in strength. As long as the Land of Fire did not act, other countries would not act. At the same time, since the methods of dealing with the Tailed Beasts were all about the same, Leaf Village only had a slight advantage, not counting Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara. So, with Senju Hashirama dead, everyone felt at ease to act, and Leaf Village had to fight on multiple fronts.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, Jinchūriki are not used to fight enemy soldiers on the regular battlefield, but to be thrown into the enemy's headquarters to destroy their base.

Having Tailed Beasts is like telling your opponent – if you won't let me pass, then nobody will.

However, the Tailed Beasts are not strong enough. The Five Kage- level ninjas basically have the ability to suppress the Tailed Beasts, but they do not have the same deterrent effect as nuclear weapons on Blue Star. Moreover, in addition to the destructive power and uncontrollability of the Tailed Beasts' treasures, they also have another attribute - uniqueness.

There are only nine Tailed Beasts in the entire world, no more and no less. If Tailed Beasts kills Jinchūriki, it will be reborn after a period of time. Therefore, once a tailed Tailed Beasts is used, it may be lost forever. No one will use their own Tailed Beasts lightly.

However, precisely because of the Tailed Beasts, countries possessing Tailed Beasts, even if their strength declines, will not be destroyed after many Ninja World Wars—such as the Land of Waterfalls. On the other hand, countries without Tailed Beasts, even if they possess formidable strength, will be utterly defeated. The Land of Whirlpools, with its powerful Sealing Jutsu, is the best example of this.

If Leaf Village doesn't distribute the Tailed Beasts, then after Senju Hashirama's death, with Leaf Village losing the certainty of controlling the Tailed Beasts — Mito Uzumaki would have a hard time dealing with the Nine-Tails, let alone all eight Tailed Beasts —even if they obtained more children from the Uzumaki Clan family to be Jinchūriki, their practical effectiveness would be highly questionable. They might only be used as self-destruct weapons to destroy everything. The problem is, one self-destructing Jinchūriki is enough.

Rather than waiting until future generations can no longer protect their family fortune and are robbed, or even die and their country is destroyed, it is better to give future generations a relatively secure environment to ensure the longevity and happiness of their descendants.

With this in mind, the Senju Clan brothers decided to send away the Tailed Beasts; if they didn't have any, they would capture them. Senju Hashirama and Tobirama were keenly aware of themselves and the world, knowing that indiscriminate killing was pointless. A ninja village was just a place where ninjas gathered; if you wiped out four, eight more could escape.

From the perspective of the original timeline, it took Leaf Village about fifty years after Senju Hashirama's death for a figure to surpass him in combat power— Naruto Uzumaki. If Leaf Village had held onto the eight Tailed Beasts, which were essentially useless, during those fifty years, it would have inevitably been attacked by other ninja villages. Without Senju Hashirama, Leaf Village lacked the ability to wreak havoc, and if things went wrong, it would have become like the Land of Whirlpools, suffering the same fate as them, with the country destroyed and its people scattered.

In fact, the stronger the Tailed Beasts, the greater the risk the village that possesses it Tailed Beasts. Hidden Leaf Village possessing the Nine-Tails can be seen as taking responsibility for the Ninja World. Distributing the Tailed Beasts becomes a way of inviting several major ninja villages to show their leadership to their subordinates. This approach effectively reflects the prestige of the Five Kage Summit.

Perhaps people didn't understand at first, but after so many years, the Jonin of Leaf Village have come to understand this point.

Now, Uchiha Shingen, who has just taken office Hokage, has announced that he will openly overturn the Senju Clan brothers' decision.

Chapter Ten: The Fifth Generation's Personal Style

After dropping the bombshell of "collecting the Tailed Beasts," Uchiha Shingen struck while the iron was hot, unleashing his second sword.

"Furthermore, now that the retirement system has been implemented, I've decided to implement a re-employment system based on retirement." Uchiha Shingen, seeing the puzzled expressions on everyone's faces, knew they hadn't fully grasped the meaning of this unfamiliar term. "As you all know, for us ninjas, while physical strength and reaction time do decline with age, this only affects the professional abilities of a small number of high-ranking ninjas in a very limited range of areas. For most mid-to-low-ranking ninjas, a sixty-year-old Chunin's professional abilities are likely to be better than when they were thirty. Retirement means a significant decrease in their income, the impact on their accumulated network of contacts, and ultimately, the impact on their family's standard of living."

With Uchiha Shingen having said all that, everyone understood.

Although the three fires haven't been completely extinguished yet, the two measures of collecting Tailed Beasts and the re-employment system have already given rise to a more concrete image of the Fifth Hokage in the eyes of the public.

This is a Hokage who dares to change traditions while remaining very down-to-earth.

All the Hokage throughout history have been approachable, but being approachable doesn't necessarily mean being down-to-earth.

In fact, the most down-to-earth high-ranking official during the Third era was Shimura Danzō. While the others did not immerse themselves in grassroots work, Shimura Danzō consistently participated extensively and personally in frontline tasks. As a result, he understood the needs of the grassroots better than his former classmates.

However, Shimura Danzō was not as grounded Uchiha Shingen.

Shimura Danzō's understanding was purposeful; in his eyes, there were no good people in the world.

However, Uchiha Shingen always treated everyone as normal people.

Therefore, the re-employment system he mentioned is indeed the best solution to address the practical problems that would arise for grassroots ninjas under the retirement system.

The retirement system for ninjas is beneficial for those who retain their high-ranking status, but detrimental to those who are lower-ranking.

Because lower-ranking ninjas mostly rely on taking on ordinary missions to support their families, these missions depend heavily on experience rather than strength.

Therefore, it can be foreseen that after these experienced junior ninjas retire, they will most likely be in a state of continuing to go on missions to support their families. However, due to retirement, they will become unregistered members on the mission list.

Or they might be attracted by the high salaries offered by private organizations.

Neither of them is good.

The Fourth Hokage hoped that everyone could retire from the front lines and spend more time with their families after reaching a certain age, which was a good intention. However, he overlooked a practical fact: not all ninja children can become Jonin. Many so-called ninja families only have one ninja, and once that ninja retires, the family's income level will plummet.

Lower-ranking ninjas don't really have the ability to accumulate wealth. Even after retirement, the daily maintenance and training of ninjas still require certain costs. Once they lose their continuous source of income from missions, their families will be unable to make ends meet.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Namikaze Minato was completely unwise. Everyone knows that the retirement system created by the Fourth Hokage Group was incomplete; it was only a starting point. The final improvement would have to be done by the current Fifth Hokage.

After all, this is a man who enthusiastically sought early retirement but ended up becoming Hokage.

What do you all think?

This is actually quite funny.

Although they all voted for the fifth generation.

This isn't anyone's fault; if Uchiha Shingen didn't Hokage soon, the people below would be unable to contain him.

Uchiha Shingen also began to explain his ideas about the re-employment system to the Jonin.

Currently, the normal retirement age in Hidden Leaf Village is sixty. Those with significant merits can apply for early retirement, which is implemented after approval by the Hokage —the only known case so far is the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato.

Just thinking about this Uchiha Shingen's blood pressure rise a little.

There is also a delayed retirement policy, but it can only be extended to the age of 65, which is actually aimed at people like Jiraiya.

After Orochimaru, Jiraiya became the number one mission-crawler in Hidden Leaf Village, and the intensity of his missions surpassed that of any other ninja in the village.

Finding the chosen one is important to Jiraiya, but the village is more important.

To put it more directly, the reason Jiraiya valued the Child of Destiny so much was that he hoped Hidden Leaf Village would remain safe and sound amidst the upheavals foretold by the Great Toad Sage.

The re-employment system is implemented on this basis.

First, it ensures that ninjas can still accept missions within the ninja village system, only limiting the level of missions they can accept to no more than C-rank. However, the mission income remains the same as before retirement. Before Jonin rank, the number of missions they can accept cannot be limited.

Secondly, there are subsidies corresponding to ninja levels. For ninjas who continue to engage in ninja activities only under the ninja village system, the village will provide financial subsidies according to the ninja level, since the intensity of the missions they can accept is limited to a maximum of C-level.

A ninja who lives to retirement age, to put it bluntly, deserves credit for their hard work, even if they didn't achieve great things.

This is also the Will of Fire.

Having just become Hokage, Uchiha Shingen had already experienced the benefits of this thing.

Once the Will of Fire is mentioned, anyone who wants to refute it must also bring up the Will of Fire.

However, there will be little resistance to implementing the re-employment system.

After all, the re-employment system is designed to protect the rights of lower-ranking ninjas, while these rights have little impact on the Jonin ninjas.

"That's the general framework. Does anyone have any other opinions?" After finishing speaking, Uchiha Shingen was a little thirsty. He picked up the teacup beside him, took a sip of tea, and moistened his throat.

Once the Hokage finished speaking, the Jonin in front began to discuss freely.

Each of them has their own team, and whether their subordinates can have enough to eat is also something they must pay attention to.

Although different teams may have different needs, the commonalities outweigh the differences.

Therefore, they finished their discussion quickly, and no one objected.

"Alright, I'll have the administration department handle the specific regulations." Uchiha Shingen's eyes flashed as he said this. "Considering that the retirement system was just implemented by the Fourth Hokage before his retirement, to ensure continuity of work, I will work with the Fourth Hokage to ask him to come back and help the colleagues in the administration department to implement this. Hmm, considering the differences among the Jonin, there should be separate regulations for the re-employment of Jonin. This is something we will need to solicit opinions from everyone on, and I hope everyone will provide timely feedback."

The Jonin present immediately perked up.

Actually, they did have some objections to the re-employment system, specifically regarding how these Jonin ninja) were re-employed.

They certainly wouldn't compete with their former subordinates for C-level missions.

They were relieved to hear that the fifth generation head said so.

They will definitely help the Fifth Hokage persuade the Fourth Hokage!

"Alright, now that this matter is settled, let's return to the previous topic." Uchiha Shingen's smile faded, and his expression became solemn. "Regarding the collection of the Tailed Beasts, please vote first: to do it or not?"

Chapter Eleven: Leaf Village's Operation Against the Tailed Beasts Begins

Gone was the earlier ease; the Jonin present became cautious.

Of course, there are no mindless opponents; how could such a person become Jonin?